Lest We Forget
by luvsanime02
Summary: Harry tries not to remember Sirius, but he can't quite make himself forget. Written as a prize fic for Iesh, for winning 2nd place in the Second Blindfolded Competition over on the Harry Potter FanFiction Challenges in the forums. The request was a non-magical!au, with Harry and the others attending a dance school instead.


**Disclaimer:** Harry Potter belongs to JKR, and I am making no money off of this fic.

 **AN:** This fic is dedicated to Iesh, for winning 2nd place in the Second Blindfolded Competition over on the Harry Potter FanFiction Challenges in the forums. The request was a non-magical!au, with the Harry Potter characters attending a dance school instead. For the record, I know nothing about dance. Any terms in this fic were researched, and if used in error, I can only offer my sincerest apologies.

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 **Lest We Forget** by luvsanime02

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Before Hogwarts, Harry had never even attended a single dance class. When Hagrid had barged into his life and informed him that Harry's name was down for the premiere dance school in Britain, he'd thought the large man mad as a hatter. How could Harry possibly attend a boarding school for dance, when he'd never in his life so much as owned a pair of dance shoes, of any kind?

All Harry had at the time were his beat-up trainers, and his broken glasses. He wore his cousin's cast-off clothes, and now slept in his cast-off bedroom; a matching set.

But Hagrid had stood there, beaming down at Harry as though he were worth something, as though he could be someone other than the neighbourhood delinquent his relatives had always made him out to be. Little did Harry know then the reputation that was already waiting for him in the world of dance.

Now, it was five years later, and in all that time Harry had never felt the urge to dance as he did just then, even as he fought the pull. He walked away from the others, from his best friends Ron and Hermione, no longer able to take their silent looks of pity. Ron was quiet and unmoving, unnatural for him, while Hermione was all nervous energy, tapping her fingers and feet while she counted out steps under her breath, and Harry just knew that she was again memorising the latest fast step dance they'd been taught, a hornpipe called 'Mad Moll'.

He should stay with them both. They'd lost Sirius too. But he couldn't. One more second of hearing the familiar rhythmic taps of students keeping time in their heads, one more minute of existing in the bubble of silence that surrounded him, of the covert looks of concern, and Harry would have exploded in anger again. He didn't want that. He didn't want to feel anything right now, didn't think that he could bear it.

It was no use, though. The memories were pressing down on him relentlessly. Memories of the time Sirius had danced gracefully around Grimmauld Place's spacious hardwood floors, grimy and rotted through in some places as they were, during the hols, happy during those few weeks in a way that Harry knew his godfather had never been again before his death.

The memory of meeting Sirius for the first time, of daring to hope for just a short while that he'd finally be able to live with someone who actually wanted him. Harry's joy when he'd unwrapped his new split sole ballet slippers, the expensive leather soft and supple in his hands.

The gift of knowing that Sirius was always there to talk to, even if Harry did have to wait for a reply through the mail. The knowledge that Harry had someone almost like an actual parent, someone who would support Harry unconditionally when he had doubts about being as good of a dancer as everyone else seemed to expect from the child of two of Hogwart's most promising talents.

Everyone expected great things from Harry, but he didn't feel great, or all that talented, especially when performing older dances, and Sirius had taken the time and effort to quietly let Harry know that it was okay if he never became the great legend that the dancing world seemed to think he already should be.

All gone now. Sirius was gone, stumbling when pushed by his cousin, Bellatrix, and falling off the stage through the closed curtain before his neck snapped. But Harry couldn't think about that right now. Not about any of it. If he did, he would cry, or scream, or hunt down Bellatrix and try to break her leg again. Instead, Harry wanted to remain empty. It was so much easier than feeling.

Which was why he couldn't stay near Ron and Hermione any longer. Looking into their solemn gazes, knowing that they were suffering too, would only be the undoing of him. He couldn't face them yet, more damning evidence that Sirius was dead. Harry needed to be alone, though he already felt like he was, even when surrounded by others.

He just couldn't comprehend that Sirius was gone for good. One second, his godfather had been challenging his cousin, feet flashing in a jig, a mocking smile on his face. The next-

Harry didn't want Sirius to be gone, disappearing beyond that curtain. He would have jumped after his godfather, down off the stage without hesitation. Maybe Harry could have done something. Maybe he could have helped Sirius, somehow, saved him.

Lupin hadn't let him, though. He'd stopped Harry from leaping, wrapping an arm around him and refusing to let go. All he'd had to do was let Harry go to Sirius. Afterwards, of course, Harry couldn't blame his ex-instructor. The drop from the old stage to the pit below had been fifteen meters. Even if Harry had been lucky enough not to break his neck or his back, the impact would have crushed him. At the time, he hadn't cared.

Harry still wasn't sure that he cared now.

Up ahead, in one of the small courtyards, Harry saw a figure moving around in the early morning sunlight. He stood still for a moment, trying not to resent someone already using the very spot he'd been heading towards. Suddenly, the figure moved over to the other side of the open space, the sun no longer obscuring their features, and Harry could see who it was.

She was a younger student, Luna Lovegood, and she was trying to dance without any shoes. Even Harry couldn't help grimacing at her bloody toes, the way her shins were mottled black and blue from coming down on the ground too hard, without a partner there to catch her. He knew that only long hours of repetition in such conditions could produce those effects.

Dance school could be very tough. After his long year of detentions with Umbridge, practicing Pointe without shoes or tape, Harry doubted his toes would ever bend the right way again. That was nothing compared to Luna's injuries, though, because hers were the result of no one in her House willing to partner up with her, and from when they stole her shoes and tripped her up at every available opportunity. Bullied by an instructor who had no business being in the school was one thing, but being hurt so maliciously by your fellow peers was quite another.

Still, the girl in front of him didn't stop. She danced, eyes closed and body moving off-rhythm, but with her whole heart clearly in her efforts, and Harry felt a stirring of compassion while watching her. "All right, Luna?" he called out to her quietly, not wanting to disturb her at the wrong moment and cause her to fall. He'd seen enough of falling.

She didn't stop, but instead moved into a slow waltz, holding her arms out where they would rest on a partner. Her eyes opened, distant blue looking over at him almost by accident. It was a nice change from the careful looks he'd been getting from everyone else. "Oh, Harry, hello. Yes, I'm perfectly well."

Not how Harry would have put it. "You're not wearing shoes." He didn't know why he was stating the obvious.

Luna shrugged. "The other girls will give them back on the train," she replied, answering Harry's real question. "I'm sorry about your godfather," she went on blithely, and Harry tried not to stagger from the pain that the unexpected mention of Sirius caused.

"I don't want to talk about it," Harry muttered, looking down.

At least Luna didn't seem upset about his brushing her off. "You could dance about it instead," she said. "I dance about my mother sometimes, when I'm remembering her. That way, she's never really gone, because she's part of my dancing."

The idea made Harry's breath catch in his throat. To immortalise Sirius in a dance… The idea hadn't occurred to him until just then, or maybe he'd been too afraid of his memories to try, but now it sounded right to Harry.

He smiled at this odd girl, and for the first time, named her a friend in his thoughts. "Thanks, Luna."

"You're quite welcome, Harry." She slowed her waltz even more, then stopped altogether and left, seeming to know without him saying a word that Harry wanted to use the courtyard.

Except, after she'd gone, Harry didn't know if he could do it after all. Did he really want to dance just yet? Did he ever want to dance again? Harry didn't know if he could bear to, but he recalled the way Sirius' eyes would light up, full of life, when he danced. To Sirius, dancing had been the best and the worst parts of life; the freedom of choosing to focus on modern dancing, mixed with his family's long history of classical ballet.

To Harry, dancing sometimes came naturally, sometimes only with exhaustive practice, when the steps were too complicated or restrictive to dance instinctively. Like Sirius, Harry was all about the passion behind dancing, the freedom to fly across the stage, caught up in the adrenaline of the moment, the thrill of pulling the audience in until they were almost as enraptured as he was. To Harry, dancing was about life.

Before he knew it, Harry was moving out into the courtyard. For once, he didn't care who was watching, who was silently judging him to see if he lived up to his parents' legacy. He stretched only minimally, with no barre present, before letting his thoughts go blank and settle into blissful nothingness.

Harry moved slowly at first. Like Luna, he was not wearing dance shoes. With the train almost ready to take him back to Privet Drive and his hateful relatives, Harry was already wearing his old, worn-out trainers. He slid them off now, until he was standing with his bare toes digging into the grass. For a second, he regretted not having his Pointe shoes with him, even though they wouldn't do much good on this surface anyway.

Then, he stopped caring. Harry raised his arms, bent into the fifth position, and then leaped into a simple soubresaut. From there, the dance flowed. Harry performed a glissade to gain momentum, leaped into a grand jet _é_ , and felt as though he was flying. His heart soared, and he finally let himself grieve for Sirius. His blood pounded in his ears, and his muscles strained to gain more height, and somehow Harry found himself falling into the motions of 'Firebird', from _Lest We Forget_.

It was a dance of grief, and of mourning; of great despair, and then of revival. It was modern, earning the scorn of many at his school who felt that only the classical dances were worth their time, but this was the kind of dance that Harry excelled at. He improvised the parts that needed a partner, added his own embellishes here and there, and never lost the beat of the song. The ballet itself was in remembrance of war, of the struggles of both the heroes who fought and those left behind.

Harry had never possessed the right frame of mind to dance from _Lest We Forget_ before, other than mechanically. But now, he moved without thought, without breath. The song was slow in parts, fast in others, demonstrating the whirlwind of Harry's emotions over the last few weeks. His eyes brimmed with tears behind his glasses, obscuring his vision, but Harry didn't care. Usually, he danced with his glasses off, except when learning in classes or during rehearsals, so Harry was used to the blurriness, and could easily ignore it.

In his mind, Sirius was laughing. His godfather had been bright and strong, and a little reckless, full of enthusiasm. Harry danced, and didn't feel his muscles grow tired, or how badly his still-injured feet hurt. For those minutes frozen in time, all Harry knew was the song, and the sound of Sirius' encouragement in his ears. _Dance for yourself, Harry._

So, he did. On and on, until he was dizzy and sick and happy and sad, and oh, how it hurt to feel so much after all his previous days of numbness. It was a good hurt, though, a healing one.

And when he was done, when Harry finally collapsed and couldn't make himself get up again, he lay there in the grass and looked up at the sun, panting and crying and laughing all at once.

Eventually, Harry gathered himself up, dried his tears, and sat upright. Only then did he notice his aching arms, his trembling legs, and that his feet were such a mess it would hurt to walk on them for weeks. He didn't care, though. For the first time since Sirius had died, Harry felt like maybe he could breathe a little.

"Harry!" he heard someone shout. The self-consciousness that had been absent until just then rose up in him when he realised that someone was close by, watching, but he immediately relaxed again when he saw that it was Ron and Hermione waving him over, his trunk resting alongside theirs. It must be time for the train to leave.

Stiffly, Harry stood up and walked towards them, his heart a little lighter, even though his grief over Sirius was far from spent. Ron clapped him on the shoulder in silent support, and Hermione smiled tentatively. "Are you okay, Harry?" she asked him carefully.

It was the same look she'd been giving him for weeks now, and Ron was looking away, though glancing back at him every few seconds, just as obvious. They were both still worried, still hovering, but to Harry it no longer felt like they were trying to weigh him down.

He smiled back, just a little, and was grateful to see them both relax. "I will be," he promised, and together the three of them set off, his friends flanking him on either side in a silent gesture of love and support.

Harry had been wrong before. He might have lost Sirius, but even so, he was far from alone. He'd almost forgotten that there were others who would stand beside him, whatever happened. Harry made a vow to never forget that again.


End file.
